


Hold On to Something

by Antipode



Series: I Was Lost Without You [5]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Lesbians in Space, Mild Smut, No Lesbians Die, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, Zero-gravity sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:48:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26735380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antipode/pseuds/Antipode
Summary: Liara awakes to find Shepard already risen, sleepless, looking for a way to shut her mind off.
Relationships: Female Shepard/Liara T'Soni
Series: I Was Lost Without You [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1937521
Kudos: 29





	Hold On to Something

**Author's Note:**

> Re-posting to re-organize a series of short vignettes in the lives of Sybilla Shepard and Liara T'Soni, spanning ME1-ME3 and including backstory & some future content. Largely told through Liara's POV.

“Shepard?”

Liara tentatively crept through the main battery, illuminated only by runner-lights along the floor, still set to the pre-’dawn’ shift settings. The Normandy SV-1 was unusually quiet, calm, even for this very early hour between night and morning shifts, with only her breathing and the ever-present hum of the warp core to keep her company. Besides a gently-snoring duty officer perched on a chair, ‘guarding’ the mess and the few drowsy-eyed ensigns monitoring the ship’s mass relay jump, the rest of the crew seemed to be at a well-deserved rest, a rare period of peace and recovery between increasingly-dangerous missions.

A rare period of rest and recovery for everyone but the one woman who needed it most, Liara reflected wryly.

The bed they secretly - and, as an unfortunate result, infrequently - shared had been empty when Liara had awoken. That in and of itself wasn’t unusual; whereas Liara would habitually spend all night wrapped up in her research, in her notes, or when time and circumstances permit, wrapped up in a good book, Sybilla was an incredibly early riser, even for a Navy woman. The indefatigable Spectre seemed only to sleep when it was prescribed to her by a medical professional, or catch it in the barest of terms; a few moments’ sleep here, a few hours’ between combat drops there. When asked, she’d always shrug, saying she’d never really been able to sit still even as a child, pointing to the frenetic pace of life aboard military vessels, or how being born and raised in space had given her no internal clock to reference whatsoever. Hearing the soft, panicked noises she made in her brief sojourns of sleep, seeing the fluttering of eyelids, the way she curled into a ball, the way her hackles rose and how she guarded her back, even at rest… Liara had other hypotheses as to why this otherwise fearless woman avoided closing her eyes for too long.

But this morning, it was a little too early for even her lover to have slipped out of Liara’s little lab behind the med-bay. She had sensed something troubling her last night, had tried to probe, to draw it out of her, but the walls had come up, the distance, even as Sybilla wrapped those powerful arms around her, had pulled her close into her chest to silence her questions. A helpless frustration had trickled through the pleasant, obscuring heat of her need, of her want, an inability to comfort this woman, to protect her from her own pain and sorrow as she had comforted and protected her so many times. Even their lovemaking, usually slow and tender and a little awkward, as they explored each other’s bodies and hearts and mind and wants and needs, had been tinged with a sense of urgency, of desperation, Sybilla’s strong fingers digging deeply into her as she feverishly tried to lose herself in Liara’s mouth, in her flesh.

 _Not that I minded terribly,_ she thought, cheeks and doubtlessly other parts of her flushed with heat at the memory. _Not that I minded that, at all._

“Shepard?” she ventured again, whispering softly into the bowels of the dimly-illuminated ship. She had checked the CIC and the cockpit, had checked the cargo bay, where Sybilla most often went to seek isolation, to throw herself mindlessly at a frighteningly difficult and intense physical training routine that none of the other marines would even attempt. This long stretch of ship, by the escape pods, was the last place she had to search for her wayward Commander.

Come to think of it, there _was_ a strange sound coming out of the escape pod. It sounded like… breathing?

A tinge of alarm flooded through the young asari as she crept forward. Was Sybilla safe? Was she trapped? What was she doing in an escape pod? Had someone thrown her inside? Her pulse quickened slightly as she struggled to keep her own breathing quiet, keep her footfalls soft. Like slipping on a glove, she reached out within, gathering a weave of biotic energy, felt that warm, reassuring presence within her, just at hand. _Seize the nonshape_. Mother’s seneschal’s voice in her mind, even after all those years. _Ripples on a still pond. Reach out with your mind, manifest your will._ The sounds from within the pod drew closer. Not trusting herself to breathe, she raised herself to the inch-thick glass, peering through the porthole.

Saw a familiar frame, all lean, corded muscle and black ink and tawny skin, soaked in a sheen of sweat, rising and falling rhythmically. Sybilla was supporting herself on one hand, the other arm tucked behind her back, and Liara couldn’t help but stare, mouth slightly agape as she watched the human lower herself until her nose nearly touched the ground, then push herself up until her arm was fully extended. The way the muscles in her arms and back shifted, the way her thighs and lower back tightened, clenching and unclenching, the way those skillfully-inked tattoos rippled with the flexing of those lovely, strong planes and plates and cords beneath her skin, the way her athletic top criss-crossed her back, her shorts framed her hips and thighs, the way the sweat glistened like morning dew on an Armali glade…

Liara was so wrapped up in watching Sybilla exercise she didn’t even notice when her weight slid against the door panel, barely heard the faint chime before there was a metallic hiss and the ship’s VI announced in a too-loud voice, **equalizing gravity.** The door slid open, and there was a moment’s confusion in Shepard’s face when she went to push herself up and nearly launched herself across the room, fell backwards with a loud, awkward clang as her head bounced off the steel bench of the escape pod.

“Goddess!” Liara exhaled, rushing beside her to cradle her head, her fingers probing for a wound or bump. “Sybilla, I am _so_ sorry… are you alright? I did not mean to-”

The woman was laughing, _laughing_ , as she straightened, riffling a hand through her sweat-soaked hair, eyes flashing with amusement. “Good morning, Bluebird. Didn’t think I’d see you up this early.” A brief flash of concern. “It is still morning, right? Easy to lose track of time in here."

 _Bluebird_. The pet names Sybilla had taken to using when it was just the two of them always produced a flutter in her stomach, at the playful intimacy of it, the familiarity. Nobody had ever looked at her the way Sybilla did, had ever spoken to her the way Sybilla did.

“It is _very_ early, in fact,” Liara admitted. “Even for you.” She sat down, resting her head against Sybilla’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“I only just put together I can increase the gravity in these pods, as well as decrease it,” Sybilla flashed her a lopsided grin. “Totally revolutionized my PT.”

“You were training at _higher_ than normal gravity?” Liara stared at her incredulously. “That sounds… incredibly dangerous.”

“Naw, only two or three times more gravity than Earth standard.” She let out a long breath. “This time, I’m going to be ready. This time, nothing’s going to stop me from…” The playfulness in her voice trailed off, and her eyes took on a faraway look.

“Sybilla… are you alright?” Liara’s own voice trembled. She wrapped a hand around her bondmate’s bicep, as much for her support as her lover’s.

“Yes,” she answered instantly. There was a long pause. “No. I don’t know. Just… stuck in my own head, I guess. Needing to… not think. Just _act_. Just focus on something I can control.”

“Like gravity?” The asari tilted her head.

Sybilla chuckled, seemingly despite herself. “Yes, something simple to control, like gravity.”

“Love,” Liara whispered. “You can tell me anything, _anything._ Whenever you want. Whenever you’re ready.” She squeezed a firm, muscled arm, enjoying the sensation of her soft skin, of the iron underneath. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Sybilla’s eyes glowed at her, gentle, sorrowful. She leaned into her and pressed a kiss into the asari’s forehead, her mouth lingering, a ripple of heat drifting outward from where those lips touched, sending tingles to the ends of her crest. “Okay,” she exhaled, her voice low and husky.

A sudden, uncharacteristic thought crossed Liara’s mind. She stroked Sybilla’s arm once again, this time with a tingling deliberateness, before summoning up her omni-tool, rapidly inputting a series of commands.

“What _are_ you doing?” Sybilla cocked an eyebrow, amusement and something else flooding back into those glimmering green orbs.

The escape pod door slid closed with a metallic hiss and a slight venting of pressure. **Disabling gravity,** the VI chimed. Liara stretched out and wrapped her body around Sybilla’s, entwining her legs with the human, _her_ human, sliding her hands over those taut, sweat-glistening muscles, feeling the ridges and valleys of her abdomen beneath her palm, the way her head fit _just_ so nestled in the crook of Sybilla’s shoulder. They both felt their weights slide away into nothingness, felt themselves drift upwards, buoyant, like a drifting feather, like a dandelion caught in the wind. Liara could feel the tension and strain in Sybilla’s muscles fade, recede, like water at low tide, saw the look of placid calm wash over her face as her jaw unclenched and her eyelids drooped, just a little, as they began to float about the small chamber, just large enough for the two of them, for only the two of them.

“Controlling gravity, love,” she murmured lightly, stretching out her body against her, tilting her head up expectantly for a kiss. “And giving you something else to focus on…”


End file.
